Hon Deputy Speaker, yesterday witnessed deceitful sins where the SA Democratic Teachers Union, Sadtu, encouraged learners to participate in their march to Parliament, demanding the resignation of Minister Angie Motshekga. This shameful act shows once more that Sadtu has no regard for the interests of black pupils in particular. The majority of the pupils who participated in the march were from the township schools. This means that our children, whose schooling is already poor, will even be worse off.
In the past, Sadtu had many opportunities to genuinely march and mobilise society against the poor state of our education system; for example, the Limpopo textbooks debacle, but it did not do so. Now that the dysfunction in the Department of Education is affecting their pockets due to its unitary decision to withdraw from a collective bargaining agreement that sets out tariffs for the setting and marking of matric examinations, it is mobilising against the system, and, in the process, using our children as pawns in the ruling alliance's internal power struggles. The UDM condemns this deceitful act in the strongest possible terms. Thank you.